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Surgeon

Third Sunday of the month: 23:00 – 01:00

Anthony Child, aka Surgeon, is rightly recognised as one of the most important figures in British techno. He’s been a pivotal figure in the genre for nearly 20 years, having first cut his teeth in the early ’90s Birmingham scene. His own productions – powerful, hypnotic tracks that blend beautifully balanced percussive motion with unstoppable forward drive – have been released on labels such as Tresor, Downwards and his own Dynamic Tension, and have been hugely influential on successive generations of techno artists both in the UK and further afield.

Surgeon is equally renowned for his adventurous DJ sets. While assembled around a techno axis, they draw all manner of other styles into their orbit, including his influences such as noise and industrial musics. He was also one of the first people outside of the dubstep scene to begin regularly playing the genre’s early forms, and highlighted its connections with techno which have become increasingly explicit over the subsequent years.

His monthly show on Rinse FM showcases his broad-minded approach in action. “I want to keep a strong momentum going through the show,” he says, and while staying firmly rooted in club music, “I always like to stretch the boundaries of what that could be.” So expect to hear an exquisitely curated selection of tracks, all mixed together in Surgeon’s immediately distinctive style, drawing you deep inwards, but always retaining a capacity to shock and surprise. “My idea for the show is to begin with new music that I’m enjoying, primarily what I’m playing in my DJ sets,” he explains. “During the last part of the show I’ll play some older techno tunes, not necessarily ‘classics’, but some that listeners may not have heard before – it’s a way to join the dots between older and newer techno music.”